And me? Well…
Here I was, ready to ruin Mikhail’s home away from home just because I was in love with him.
It was a crappy situation — and the reason why the two of us snuck around so much. We’d christened so many nooks and crannies and trees of this town that I was sure people were going to find out.
“Misha, I’d never make you choose — or put you in that kind of a situation,” I said. “You know that.”
He bent forward — I barely came up to his sternum — and kissed the very tip of my nose. “I know. One of these days we’ll make them understand what we have.”
“Oh, yes,” I joked. “‘Mom, Jon, Misha and I have been making out everywhere we think we can get a little privacy and want you to celebrate what we have together. We even made it to second base the other day.”
Mikhail had been amused by my sarcasm, but when he frowned, I stopped. “Second base?” he asked.
“You should probably get your list out,” I said, and he reached in his pocket for his cellphone. “Second base is when you’re making out with someone and you get to touch her breast.”
He snorted at that, thumbing in my explanation to add the latest idiom to his ongoing file. “Just when I think I’m fluent in English, there’s something else I need to learn.” He blinked up at me, his handsome face illuminated by the light of his screen. “Baseball? Really? So what’s third base?”
I laughed, blushing and thankful that the dark hid it. “What I did in the car the other week.”
“Ah.” He typed some more. “And then a home run?”
“What do you think a home run means?”
His blue eyes glowed. “I’m hoping it’s what I’m planning on doing to you tonight.”
I tried to fight back a surge of arousal that made me clench my thighs together. “Think you better add that one to your list too?”
Mikhail slipped his phone back into his pocket. “I think I’ll be able to remember that one, malysh.”
I sighed. He knew I didn’t speak Russian, and yet he was always dropping random words into conversation. “So what does that one mean?” It made me wish there was a Russian language course available at the community college I was attending in the next town over.
“What one?”
“Malysh. Let me guess. Jerk. Hell. Is it the F-word?”
He worked his fingers under the hood of my sweatshirt to stroke my hair. “You are terrible at Russian.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I told you that ebat was ‘fuck’ way back in tenth grade.”
“Well, that’s less about me understanding Russian and more about me having a bad memory. How am I supposed to remember vocabulary from five years ago?”
“If I can do it, you can do it.”
“But you’re speaking English all the time. I never speak Russian. Except for now. Ebat!Malysh.”
“Malysh means ‘baby,’” Mikhail said, tracing my lips with his fingertip, sending a temblor of pleasure up my spine. “Anyway, come on. We’re wasting the night. I have a surprise for you.”
“I hate surprises.” But I followed him anyway. I’d have followed him anywhere.
We climbed up a set of rickety stairs to the wraparound porch of the old house, the floorboards creaking in warning beneath us. When he reached the front door, I opened my mouth and closed it again, biting my lip.
I’d never been inside before. I didn’t even know you could.
“I know it’s taking everything you have not to complain that we’re trespassing.” Mikhail glanced back at me, his expression hard to read in the dark, as he swung the door open. It creaked loudly.
“We were already trespassing when we walked past the fence on the property line,” I pointed out. “Have you been inside before?”